What a Mother Eats Can Determine Sex of Baby

A new British research suggests that what a woman eats before getting pregnant can affect the gender of what the baby will be. Eating potassium-rich foods, including bananas, and eating breakfast each day can raise the chances of having a boy.

The study was based on 700 first-time pregnant women in the United Kingdom who didn’t know the sex of their fetuses and they were asked about their eating habits in the year before they had gotten pregnant. 56 percent of the women with the highest calorie intake before pregnancy had boys and only 45 percent of the women with the lowest calorie intake had boys.

The women who ate at least one bowl of breakfast cereal each day were 87 percent more likely to have a baby boy than the women who ate less than one bowl of cereal each week. The women who gave birth to boys also ate an additional 300 milligrams of potassium each day on average before getting pregnant. The women who had boys also ate about 400 calories more each day on average than the women who had girls.

Coffee Can Cause Miscarriages

A recent study found that pregnant women that drink more than one cup of coffee a day are at risk of having a miscarriage. Even a small amount can be very dangerous. Two hundred milligrams of caffeine, the equivalent of two cups of regular coffee, can double the risk of having a miscarriage, especially in the first trimester. Caffeine decreases blood flow to the placenta and stresses the metabolism of the fetus. It is recommended that a pregnant woman doesn’t have any caffeine in her diet.

Test That Predicts Diabetes Years Before It Happens

A test for three proteins can predict if a woman will develop diabetes years before standard screenings find a problem. The three proteins are signs of inflammation that are linked to insulin resistance. Finding out whether a person will get diabetes early could warn the person and influence them to make lifestyle changes before it’s too late.